Manama: Divorce cases in Saudi Arabia reached an alarming level in 2014, prompting experts to put serious thought into ways to address the phenomenon.

According to official figures, there were thrice as many divorce cases as marriages, with the Red Sea city of Jeddah topping the list among urban centres across the kingdom in terms of divorce cases filed.

The figures released by the justice ministry show 33,954 cases of divorce in 2014, compared to 11,817 marriages.

King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah, pointing out that the figures were an alarm bell for the country as a whole, said it had decided to conduct intensive workshops for young men and women planning on getting married.

The 15-hour workshops will be free and will offer advice on drawing up strategies for happy and lasting marriages, local daily Okaz reported on Sunday.

The workshops will throw light on the negative consequences of divorce and explore ways to ensure that marriages become immune to the risk of failure, organisers said.

Young couples participating in the sessions are given valuable insights into the concepts of successful marriages and ways to deal with any issues that crop up in their married life, they said.

“We basically want solutions since divorce is among the major social problems in Saudi Arabia,” Fuad Mirdad, one of the lecturers, said. “Divorce requires special efforts to deal with it, and these start with building a culture of the family and developing mental strength and capabilities to solve problems before considering separation. The workshops aim to equip those planning to get married with the aptitude to become wiser and more tolerant in drawing up their lives together,” he said.

Mirdad said that the workshops were based on six themes — moral values, psychology, communication, society, health and economic factors.

An official who drafts marriage contracts had last year highlighted the problem when he said that up to 80 per cent of divorce cases in Saudi Arabia had been initiated by women, mostly within the first year of marriage.

“The women start the procedures and insist on the divorce often for trivial issues,” he said. “These are mainly snoring, the look of the husband inside the house and the lack of romance as a result of the influence of dramas and media on the impressionable minds of young wives,” he said.

Religious figures tasked with drafting marriage contracts in Al Qateef in eastern Saudi Arabia said that ways to address rising divorce rates in the kingdom included urging families to check the background of grooms instead of relying on matchmakers.

Most marriages are arranged in Saudi Arabia where the mixing of the sexes is strictly controlled.

“Parents have a highly significant role in ensuring that the men who want to marry their daughters have a good reputation and a satisfactory behaviour,” Judge Mohammad Al Jirani said.

Spouses were also advised against rushing to hasty decisions, with experts calling for exploring all avenues for reconciliation and giving spouses ample time to reconsider their options.

Divorce is permitted in Islam, but only as a last resort when it is no longer possible for the marriage to continue.